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Firefox 4 is here

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Re: Firefox 4 is here

#191

Post by joebananas »

icegreentea wrote: post #25
eapen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth a try? Yes. Better Tab handling and has the ability to hold tabs in "groups" and a "panorama" view which allows you to view all tabs across groups. The awesome bar has also improved significantly and has some smart features (like the option of tab switching instead of opening a new tab when you already have a URL open). Better Add-ons management interface and some add-ons work without a restart of the browser.…

I've been using FF4 beta since B3... does anyone actually use the panorama/tab grouping thing? I find its performance really poor and kinda frustrating, especially since I've been using add-ons that provide similar functionality for a while.

Only by accident. It stole a longstanding adblock extension keybinding, and I haven't yet retrained my fingers.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#192

Post by technomancy »

51Cards wrote: post #158
mbrubeck wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was answering the question from above "what are the differences from the current version?" As for the differences from Chrome, those are mostly the same as they've always been: Deeper extensibility, more customization points, and made by a non-profit organization dedicated to openness.

Most customization points is the big win for me. I REALLY like to alter my browsers to fit my preferred layout and FF has done quite well at maintaining that capability for me. I get into Chrome and I find myself constantly going "Oh, there's no option for that... Oh, there's no option for that... Oh, there's no option for that... " to the point I close it in frustration yet again.

Absolutely. You would never be able to do something like http://conkeror.org in Chrome. At one point I tried to change some key bindings in Chrome, and I had to spend 2 hours recompiling the whole thing; it was an absolute nightmare.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#194

Post by huhtenberg »

mbrubeck wrote: post #174
huhtenberg wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the hint. FF3 had a problem with gradually slowing down to a crawl. Clicking on the link would take few seconds to register, switching between tabs or from another app to FF would also cause FF to appear frozen for several seconds, etc. Submitted a ticket regarding this, got multiple follow-up comments from other users, but never from a dev. I realize you have a volume to deal with, but on my end it looks…

You might want to try running in a fresh profile, to see if anything in your old profile is causing the problem: http://limi.net/articles/firefox-preferences/ Sorry about your unanswered bug - it's pretty hard for us to address general performance bugs that don't have specific steps to reproduce. We have to focus on fixing what we can see or measure, and hope that it fixes what users are seeing too.

Thanks for the response, Matt. Much appreciated.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#195

Post by hasenj »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #115
hasenj wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Real ad blocking (more generally: real extensions). Other points (not so major for most): * Audio api (allows you to synthesize audio) * Better language support (Chrome on Linux has tons of issues with non-latin languages)

I find that Chrome's extensions are quite real, feature rich, and stable. The last time I used FF, massive memory leaks were blamed on "your extensions." Not to mention I'm not even sure which IETab extension is real anymore. One is dead, the new one is nagware, etc. Oh, and I like that flash is sandboxed and autoupdated. I like a built-in PDF reader. I can't imagine going back to the stone age of browsers with FF or…

Well, AdBlocking in chrome is really weak.

Also, I actually don't like the built-in PDF reader in Chrome. Scrolling was weird in it last time I checked.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#196

Post by DEinspanjer »

IChrisI wrote: post #190
kristiandupont wrote: post #176

To everybody asking what Firefox has that Chrome lacks: The Awesomebar. I haven't seen it mentioned here but it's by far the thing I miss the most from FF (along with FireBug and TreeStyle Tabs). It practically replaces bookmarks for me because because it searches through the history. In Chrome it feels like I have to re-google everything unless I remember the exact url.

Personally, I like Chrome's address bar better than Firefox 4's. In Chrome, I can type g-m- to go to Gmail. In Firefox, it's g-m- - . It's a little thing, but it makes a difference to me. Can't live without Tree Style Tabs though. Firefox is my "heavy lifting" browser.

I greatly prefer being able to hit enter on the first result too. Here is the addon I use to enable that: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mozilla-labs-...

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#197

Post by jokermatt999 »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #115
hasenj wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Real ad blocking (more generally: real extensions). Other points (not so major for most): * Audio api (allows you to synthesize audio) * Better language support (Chrome on Linux has tons of issues with non-latin languages)

I find that Chrome's extensions are quite real, feature rich, and stable. The last time I used FF, massive memory leaks were blamed on "your extensions." Not to mention I'm not even sure which IETab extension is real anymore. One is dead, the new one is nagware, etc. Oh, and I like that flash is sandboxed and autoupdated. I like a built-in PDF reader. I can't imagine going back to the stone age of browsers with FF or…

I find that Chrome's extensions are quite real, feature rich, and stable.

For a lot of basic stuff, yes. GMail checker, Adblocking (afaik), simple stuff that just requires the equivalent of a Greasemonkey userscript or a button.

However, for deeper stuff that really changes the UI of the browser, Chrome is no where near Firefox. Take a look at TreeStyleTab, DownThemAll, Pentadactyl, and similar feature rich extensions. Those simply cannot be done in Chrome as is. There are some weak alternatives, but they don't do half of what Firefox's do. Vimium has issues with focus and nothing like Pentadactyl's customization; Vertical tabs doesn't allow proper grouping, UI, or options; I don't think DownThemAll's separate window is even possible on Chrome but I could be wrong.

This isn't to score points for Firefox; it's a serious weakness in Chrome that's the main thing that's kept me from switching. I don't know if Google intends to allow this kind of extensibility, but damn I hope they do.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#199

Post by rradu »

51Cards wrote: post #156
roadnottaken wrote: post #143

Meh. One of the smoothest features of Chrome (that won a lot of adherents) was how you could close lots of tabs quickly without moving the mouse (i.e. the tabs only re-size after you move the mouse away). Same for opening tabs. How did FF4 not copy this? It looks just like Chrome only crappier.

I alter FF to put the close button at the end of the tab bar in one fixed location. (it's an about:config option) I like that it doesn't move, mimics the OS Window-close mouse movement (in Windows) but MOST importantly, I think it's a complete waste of space to have an X on every tab.

I had that for FF 3, but now that the tabs are on top it just feels a lot more like Chrome where I'm used to having it on each tab, so I've moved them back on the tabs.

Btw, the relevant option in about:config is "browser.tabs.closeButtons"

Values... 0 - One close button only on the active tab. 1 - Each tabs has its own close button (default) 2 - Removes all close buttons (no close button, right click to select option to close the tab). 3 - Display a single close button at the end of the tab strip bar.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#200

Post by moomba »

giu wrote: post #38

I started using Firefox again the day I heard about the 4.0 Release Candidate, and thought I could give it a another try after it failed to convince me the few times I tried to use it in the past. I was pleasently surprised. The browser's way faster; launching it doesn't take that much time; the UI is way more responsive; and all the add-ons I've been using in the past are compatible with 4.0 (Web Developer, Firebug,…

Seems like all my previous addons that were used to improve firefox UI have been incorporated into 4.0. Very glad that Vimperator works, the main reason I use firefox. I wouldn't have upgraded if it did not.
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